Barren Land

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a whole island of dry air and touristic schemes. 

The race across the great big blue was to happen in two weeks time when we arrived. Most people had already found their places and as we wondered around the quay, nowhere would a boat take a single crew, let alone two!

Let me clear that this race is just an excuse for European boat owners to go the same way - catching the trade winds - at the same time. There's no true racing involved. 

So after many days asking around and strolling, we eventually found a guy who said he'd take one of us. The boat was fiberglass, custom build in Hamburg, by the Frankfurt owner-captain himself. Paul preferred to stay behind and let me go. Later, this proved to be quite correct, for only one month later did he find a position.

I was just turning 22 then.

Cell phones didn't exist at the time, and we had no address. We were taking our chances and would probably never see each other again.

The German captain already had two crew aboard: Berliners. At that time the wall still existed. He talked to me in rugged English and explained he expected me to do the cooking. That's always more than fine with me.  He also allowed us both to sleep aboard, which we thought was very kind on him.

A couple of days before leaving the captain took me to El Corte Ingles to buy provisions for four for the one-month trip. We returned with two full supermarket trolleys of canned goods and potatoes, and two others topped with carton wine.

I remember being quite amazed at that, but what the hell, I thought, it's European nature.

So that's how I sailed off Las Palmas de Gran Canaria aboard Caroline, bound for Barbados.